Italian Grand Prix peaks with 5.3 million

Lewis Hamilton’s victory at the Italian Grand Prix peaked strongly across BBC One and Sky Sports F1 yesterday, overnight viewing figures show.

Race
The race, broadcast live on both BBC and Sky, peaked with 5.29m (47.1%) at 14:20. The share it should be noted is particularly strong, showing that the total available TV audience was slightly lower than usual for this race; in 2011 the race peaked with a much stronger 5.78m but only peaked with a 43.9% share of the audience. It is definitely one of the better figures this year for a European race, although it is difficult to tell whether this was a result of what happened in Spa, or simply a result of their being no Premier League football. At the time of the peak, 4.39m were watching BBC One, with a further 903k on Sky, an 83:17 split, or to put it another way, for every one viewer that Sky had, BBC had nearly five times more. The peak, is higher than 2008, 2009 and 2010, only down on the aforementioned 2011 and 2012, which was a highlights race.

BBC One’s coverage from 12:10 to 15:30 averaged 2.99m (30.1%). Sky Sports F1, from 12:00 to 15:30 averaged 611k (6.2%). Unusually, both channels were up year-on-year which is nice to see. As thus, the combined average of 3.60m is up year-on-year. It is significantly down on 2011 and 2012, but up on 2010’s figure of 3.47m (33.7%). Elsewhere on Sky Sports F1, the Track Parade segment averaged 136k (1.8%) and Paddock Live’s billed slot of 15:30 to 16:15 averaged 160k (1.7%).

Qualifying, BTCC and BSB
Live coverage of qualifying on BBC One averaged 1.95m (23.4%) from 12:10 to 14:30. Sky Sports F1’s coverage from 12:00 to 14:35 averaged 370k (4.5%), bringing the combined figure to 2.32m. I think that figure is marginally down year-on-year, but it is by no means a disaster. Following the qualifying session, GP2 on Sky averaged 72k (0.9%).

Unsurprisingly, when Formula 1 is on, any other motor sport scheduled opposite it is harmed in the process. Both the British Touring Car Championship and British Superbikes were the affected parties yesterday. From 10:45 to 17:45, the BTCC averaged 95k (1.0%) on ITV4, which is much lower than their usual average of above 200k. The peak figure of 229k (2.0%) at 17:05 is significantly below what you would normally expect as a result. Live Superbikes Sunday from 09:15 to 18:00 on British Eurosport 2 averaged 69k (0.8%), peaking with 145k (1.4%) at 16:30.

The 2013 Italian Grand Prix ratings report can be found here.

Scheduling: The Formula E debut / 2014 Beijing ePrix

After two years build-up, five days of testing, a mock race and many months of speculation, Formula E has arrived! The electric series begins its first season in China for the 2014 Beijing ePrix. Unusually, the series will have all of its race activity in a one day period, and on a Saturday. Practice will begin at 08:15 and 10:30 local time, qualifying at 12:00, with the race at 16:00. For the first race at least, ITV will only be broadcasting the race live, although I imagine this is the case worldwide. In the UK, qualifying is at 05:00, so it makes little sense to broadcast it live.

Instead, highlights of practice and qualifying will be part of the pre-race build-up presented by Jennie Gow. Gow, who seems to get just about everywhere in the motor sport world, will be presenting the show from London with a series of experts – for Beijing that will be gamer turned racer Jann Mardenborough and engineer Kyle Wilson-Clarke. If demand is good, and I really hope the peak is near to one million viewers on ITV4, then maybe we could see qualifying broadcast live for say Uruguay in December when the timezone is much more favourable. I hope advertising for the series picks up on ITV as we build towards the race with adverts during their big shows. The World Feed commentators, which UK viewers will hear, are Jack Nicholls and three-time Indianapolis 500 winner Dario Franchitti. Nicki Shields is the World Feed pit-lane reporter and presenter of the World Feed, but I don’t think ITV watchers will see her in action for the latter. Former McLaren F1 mechanic Mark Priestley will be joining Shields out in Beijing.

There are several programmes before the opening weekend, notably a documentary covering the birth of the series on National Geographic, a preview of which is linked above. Both that, and the season preview on ITV4 are repeated multiple times over the week. From a broadcasting stand-point, it will be fascinating to see how the series is presented. From camera angles to pit lane and onto the soundtrack. The point about camera angles has not been talked about that much, but given that Formula E is limited to 150mph, the camera positions need to be strategic enough to capture this speed. This is one reason why Formula E is street circuit based, so that the lack of speed is not as obvious. Who knows how the soundtrack will really come across to viewers should they go down that route for definite. There’s a sense of intrigue that comes with it, for better for worse, I am excited to see how it goes down.

One thing is for certain: on Saturday 13th September, the eyes of the motor racing world will be on Beijing. And here, for the UK folk, are all the scheduling details you need…

Thursday 4th September
17:30 to 18:00 – Blue Peter (CBBC)
– a feature involving Formula E will air

Saturday 6th September
18:00 to 19:00 – Season Preview (ITV4)

Tuesday 9th September
17:00 to 18:00 – Racing Recharged (National Geographic)

Saturday 13th September
08:00 to 10:30 – LIVE Race (ITV4)
18:00 to 19:00 – Highlights (ITV4)
22:00 to 23:00 – Highlights (BT Sport 2)

Given that this is the inaugural race, I would expect there to be a few media appearances through the next week and a half building up to Beijing. I’ll try and keep the above updated as and when features are announced.

Scheduling: The 2014 Italian Grand Prix

Following the last round in Belgium, which seen Daniel Ricciardo close in on both Mercedes drivers at the front of the field thanks to their own coming together, the field heads to Monza for the Italian Grand Prix!

If you want to jump to the schedules, click the links below…

– Thursday 4th September
– Friday 5th September
– Saturday 6th September
– Sunday 7th September
– Wednesday 10th September
– Classic F1

Both BBC and Sky Sports are live weekend, meaning that it is the usual schedule for both, and not too many surprises worth pointing out. There is an oddity in the Sky schedule which claims that practice one is getting half an hour of build-up, which (outside of Australia) never happens so that should change, which is why I’ve deliberately used the normal programme time in the piece below. One scheduling note that is accurate is BBC giving practice three half an hour of reaction. It’s good to see that happen, and bridges some of the gap between practice three and qualifying shows.

Elsewhere, the second episode of Tales from the Vault is on immediately after the race on Sunday, focussing on underdogs, with Damon Hill, John Watson and Pat Symonds as guests. There currently is not a third episode scheduled for after Singapore, as only two episodes have been filmed so far. I’d expect further episodes to turn up later in the year, or more realistically 2015 sadly given that there is a lot more travel and time involved in the last haul of races. Here are all the details you need:

Thursday 4th September
14:00 to 14:45 – F1: Driver Press Conference (Sky Sports F1)
23:30 to 23:45 – Gear Up for Italy (Sky Sports F1)

Friday 5th September
08:45 to 11:00 – F1: Practice 1 (Sky Sports F1)
08:55 to 10:35 – F1: Practice 1 (BBC Two)
11:00 to 11:50 – GP2: Practice (Sky Sports F1)
12:45 to 14:50 – F1: Practice 2 (Sky Sports F1)
13:00 to 14:35 – F1: Practice 2 (BBC Two)
14:50 to 15:30 – GP2: Qualifying (Sky Sports F1)
16:00 to 16:45 – F1: Team Press Conference (Sky Sports F1)
17:00 to 18:00 – The F1 Show (Sky Sports F1)
18:45 to 19:00 – Inside F1 (BBC News Channel)

Saturday 6th September
08:45 to 09:20 – GP3: Qualifying (Sky Sports F1)
09:25 to 09:45 – The F1 Show: Journalists Special (Sky Sports F1)
09:45 to 11:15 – F1: Practice 3 (Sky Sports F1)
09:55 to 11:30 – F1: Practice 3 (BBC Two)
12:00 to 14:35 – F1: Qualifying (Sky Sports F1)
12:00 to 14:35 – F1: Qualifying (Sky1)
12:10 to 14:30 – F1: Qualifying (BBC One)
13:00 to 15:35 – F1: Qualifying (Sky1 + 1)
14:35 to 16:05 – GP2: Race 1 (Sky Sports F1)
16:15 to 17:15 – GP3: Race 1 (Sky Sports F1)
18:45 to 19:00 – Inside F1 (BBC News Channel)

Sunday 7th September
08:20 to 09:20 – GP3: Race 2 (Sky Sports F1)
09:30 to 10:45 – GP2: Race 2 (Sky Sports F1)
10:45 to 17:45 – BTCC: Rockingham (ITV4)
11:30 to 16:15 – F1: Race (Sky Sports F1)
=> 11:30 – Track Parade
=> 12:00 – Race
=> 15:30 – Paddock Live
12:10 to 15:30 – F1: Race (BBC One)
15:30 to 16:30 – F1: Forum (BBC Red Button)
16:15 to 17:15 – Tales from the Vault (Sky Sports F1)

Wednesday 10th September
20:30 to 21:00 – Midweek Report (Sky Sports F1)

Classic F1 on Sky Sports F1
30/08 – 21:00 to 22:00 – 1991 Canadian Grand Prix Highlights
31/08 – 21:00 to 21:45 – 1993 Monaco Grand Prix Highlights
01/09 – 21:00 to 21:45 – 1994 British Grand Prix Highlights
02/09 – 21:00 to 21:45 – 1986 Australian Grand Prix Highlights
03/09 – 21:00 to 23:00 – 2008 Italian Grand Prix
04/09 – 21:00 to 23:15 – 1989 Italian Grand Prix
05/09 – 18:00 to 20:00 – 2010 Italian Grand Prix
06/09 – 21:00 to 21:45 – 1993 Italian Grand Prix Highlights
07/09 – 17:15 to 18:00 – 1995 Italian Grand Prix Highlights
07/09 – 20:30 to 21:30 – 1973 Season Review
08/09 – 21:00 to 21:30 – 1981 Spanish Grand Prix Highlights
09/09 – 21:00 to 21:45 – 1984 Brazilian Grand Prix Highlights
10/09 – 21:00 to 23:00 – 2002 Malaysian Grand Prix
11/09 – 21:00 to 22:00 – 1986 Spanish Grand Prix Highlights
12/09 – 21:00 to 23:00 – 1999 Austrian Grand Prix

As always, if anything changes, I will update the schedule.

Update on August 30th – Sky’s coverage of qualifying is being simulcast on Sky1. Whilst good, I don’t understand why they are doing this for a race where BBC are also live. Seems a bit of a waste to me.

Update on August 30th at 18:30 – So an advert during Saturday Night Football concerning the F1 shows that Sky’s coverage does indeed start Friday ‘at 08:30’. I’m not sure why that is, and for what it’s worth, that hasn’t been amended in the last week since Belgium, it has always been the case.

Update on September 2nd – Sky schedule for the Friday now the usual-selves so nothing to see here.

Update on September 6th – A late edition to the schedule’s for today, and repeated multiple times is the addition of an F1 Show Journalists Special, at twenty minutes long focussing on the Mercedes drama from Spa.

Belgian Grand Prix fails to reverse pre-Summer decline

Formula 1’s struggles in the ratings continued after the Summer break, as the Belgian Grand Prix in the United Kingdom recorded the worst figure for a European round since 2008, according to unofficial overnight viewing figures.

Race
Before going any further, of course this is Bank Holiday weekend. However, this is by no means unusual, 2012 aside, Belgium has fell on the August Bank Holiday weekend for many, many years. So I don’t think the Bank Holiday reason is one that applies here as there is a fair playing field year-on-year. Live coverage of the race, screened live on BBC One from 12:10 to 15:30, averaged 2.44m (26.4%), peaking with 3.27m (31.8%) at 14:25. In comparison, their 2013 broadcast averaged 2.89m (28.5%), albeit over a shorter slot finishing at 15:15, peaking with 3.90m (35.8%). The BBC figure is pretty bad, and is another decline for the broadcaster.

A peak audience of 784k (8.3%) at 13:05 saw Sky Sports F1’s broadcast, which averaged 475k (5.2%) from 12:00 to 15:30. Both numbers for Sky are up year-on-year, the average is up on both 2012 and 2013. 2013’s race averaged 419k (4.2%) and peaked with 698k (6.8%) for the channel. Interestingly during the race itself, neither channel failed to add on many viewers. The combined peak of 4.04m (42.7%) was recorded at 13:05, after which the audience slowly dropped to around 3.75m, before picking up to 3.99m (38.7%) at the finish. 2013’s peak in comparison was 4.52m (41.9%) half way through the race. The figures for 2014 definitely indicate that they was a turn off as soon as Lewis Hamilton and Nico Rosberg clashed on lap two, those viewers never came back until the last few laps.

It’s worth noting that there was a BBC Two highlights broadcast last night at 19:00, which usually would have been on BBC Three. I don’t know why it was on BBC Two, and I also don’t know whether any viewers were fooled into thinking that this was a BBC highlights race as a result. For the avoidance of doubt, that programme averaged 859k (5.1%). You could bundle it into the above, but then are you presenting a fair comparison? In my view, no, where would you stop the line? I could bundle in all the repeats on Sky Sports F1. You’d be carrying on for a long time. The simplest thing to do is to take into the account the live airings for the European rounds where both are live, and that is it.

The combined average of 2.91m is the lowest for a European round since the 2008 European Grand Prix, which clashed with the closing ceremony of the 2008 Summer Olympics. Due to its positioning in the calendar, Belgium has never rated very well, which is fair enough, you cannot expect every race to set the ratings alight. The average from yesterday is down on the circa. 3.25m from 2012 and 2013, and nearly a million viewers down on the 2010 and 2011 averages.

Qualifying
Live coverage of Qualifying on BBC One averaged 1.80m (21.3%) from 12:10 to 14:20. Sky’s F1 broadcast from 12:00 to 14:35 averaged 297k (3.6%). The combined number of 2.10m looks to be down on 2013, but up slightly on 2012.

It’s worth ending this piece by mentioning a comment made by Bernie Ecclestone this past week. Ecclestone, when asked about declining TV audiences by AUTOSPORT, said: “I don’t know. We were talking to TV people about that. They [audience figures] seem to have drooped everywhere – all sports. And not just sport – other things. There are too many other things to look at.” If we are to focus on the UK for a second, then Ecclestone’s comment is accurate. There are many TV shows which have dropped significantly year-on-year. You would have to look at each case one-by-one though, especially if it is a drama or a soap opera, there may very well be circumstances unique to those particular shows (i.e. viewers not liking particular storylines to give an example).

I don’t believe sport is affected as much as other shows, from what I have seen. The Italian Grand Prix in two weeks is also live on both BBC One and Sky Sports F1, so it will be interesting to see if the figures bounce back after Belgium’s poor number.

The 2013 Belgian Grand Prix ratings report can be found here.

The new kids on the block

It is fair to say that the biggest news heading into 2014 was the announcement that BT Sport would be broadcasting MotoGP, along with feeder series’ Moto2 and Moto3, exclusively live, ending BBC’s and British Eurosport’s commitment to the sport. The move was controversial for several reasons, as has been discussed before on this blog.

The first half of 2014 has not been the smoothest for BT, however is filled with both positive and negatives. Starting off with the positives, I think we can all agree that BT Sport’s coverage is in general the most expansive that any broadcaster has ever provided to UK viewers. From classic MotoGP races, to Moto3 practice and onto MotoGP Tonight on the Tuesday following the race, the channel has it covered. Admittedly, the weekend coverage is not too different to what Eurosport provided before them aside from the fact that BT are providing a bit more ‘colour’ to the coverage. Strangely, the one thing that they don’t cover is the warm-ups for all three classes, but apart from that, they show every other session live. Alongside this, the channel has also produced documentaries, such as the Mike Hailwood documentary that aired a few months back, to positive praise from those in the motorcycling world.

One other positive from me has to be the commentary line-up of Keith Huewen and Julian Ryder. I did admit back in February to being sceptical to Huewen being brought back into the fold, especially as it meant that they chose not to go for Toby Moody. In a poll on this site before the start of the year, results were mixed in relation to BT’s team: only 10 percent of readers thought the line-up was good with nearly 50 percent disappointed in the line-up. However, I’ve been happy with the commentary team, and they have been a joy to listen to throughout the first half of 2014, Huewen quickly settling back in I feel. That’s not to say that they were right to make the change, but at least it has not backfired on them. I’ve enjoyed too the contributions of Matt Birt and Gavin Emmett, BT definitely made the right decision in bringing both men on board.

BT Sport's balcony position at the 2014 Qatar MotoGP. As of writing, never to be seen again. — BT Sport’s balcony position at the 2014 Qatar MotoGP. As of writing, never to be seen again.

Whilst there have been some aspects that BT Sport have got right, there are very well publicised negatives, which the poll before the start of the season appears to foreshadow. If I’m going to review the coverage objectively, then I cannot sweep the terrible decision making of who they appointed as presenter under the mat. On February 14th, the channel announced Melanie Sykes as their MotoGP presenter, a move which surprised many at the time. It was clear early on that Sykes was out of her depth, and not suited to presenting live sport. Why BT chose Sykes as their presenter is anyone’s guess. After four rounds, the two parties posted company. Whether it was to do with her personal issues or not, we will never know (although she has since presented several weeks worth of Let’s Do Lunch on ITV, a live daytime programme), but either way I think we can say that this was BT’s biggest mistake of the season so far. Why did they hire a presenter who had no experience presenting live sport? Apparently Sykes was supposed to bring a new audience to MotoGP, obviously that never happened.

Since then, Craig Doyle and Abi Griffiths, their rugby and Motorsport Tonight presenters respectively, have taken over presenting duties. What is unclear is whether Sykes’s departure has had any knock on effect. Qatar aside, every race has had some studio presence. Was that the intention from the get-go? If so, one has to consider if going down this route was a second mistake from BT Sport. Jake Humphrey, BT Sport’s lead football presenter and former BBC F1 presenter blogged this week, and noted that “This job is all about being at the centre of the story, which is where the real thrill lies with being a sports broadcaster. It’s why I always press to be next to the pitch, track or court when I’m working. For me, studios can’t convey an atmosphere the same.” The same applies for MotoGP.

The picture a few paragraphs up show the balcony position that BT Sport used in Qatar. It was unique. It was different. It was something that neither BBC and Sky had used before in their Formula 1 coverage. So why did it disappear after Qatar? Again, maybe it was the intention for Qatar to be the only race fully on site (along with potentially Britain and Valencia, we shall see), but it seems like a completely wasted opportunity. The balcony position could have been fantastic at showing off the atmosphere in places like Barcelona and Mugello where grandstands are rammed on race day. I assume BT Sport will be looking for a permanent MotoGP presenter for 2015 onwards, and, as they’ve done with the Premier League coverage for this season, hopefully the coverage in 2015 will be fully on-site. What they are currently doing on-site is great, it just needs a fully uniformed approach, with the studio aspects being removed from their live coverage.

As the motto goes, “you learn from your mistakes”, and I hope BT Sport learn from what has gone wrong with the MotoGP coverage so far as we head into the latter stages of the year.